IDEAL Consortium

This course is set up to help practitioners develop a site plan for offering distance or blended learning to adult learners. It is also a prerequisite for IDEAL 102: Instructional Issues or IDEAL Program Administration. Over the course of six weeks all participants will work with colleagues within their agency (teams generally consist of one admin/manager and at least one teacher per agency) to develop a plan that addresses:

Recruitment: where will your agency look for students who will study online?

Screening: how will you screen to be sure you have online-ready learners?

Orientation: how will you clearly communicate the requirements of being a distance or blended learning student and orient students to the online materials and curriculum?

Instruction: what curriculum will you offer students? How will you support and communicate with students who are studying on their own?

Assessment: how will you keep track of distance and blended learning students, monitor their progress, and collect data?

In the months following the course, each team will work to implement their site plan - supported by monthly webinars with all participants to share progress and ask questions.

This course is free to IDEAL Consortium Basic-level member states. Facilitation is available for a fee.

Contact literacy@worlded.org for pricing and for more information about how to set up a section of this course for your group.

Distance or blended learning teachers who have some experience teaching online will spend four weeks focusing on how to best support learners. Each participant develops a case study describing an instructional challenge. Together the cohort discusses each of the case studies, building a "community of practice" that remains available as a resource after the course is done. Through the discussion, each participant arrives at a few ideas to pilot. After a month of piloting, each teacher reports on their success in a webinar.

This course is for program managers who have had some experienced with distance or blended learning. The class is built around relevant articles and developing a case study, which the class discusses. It is an opportunity for program managers to share insight and information with each other. Through interaction with assigned literature and discussion of their case studies, each participant arrives at a few ideas to pilot to solve the issue described in the case study. After a month of piloting, they report back on their success in a webinar. Participants will also have the opportunity to gather information and develop narrative text that they can use in grant applications and state reporting.

Blended learning and distance teachers with some prior experience will spend four weeks learning about how to evaluate online resources for using in distance and blended learning. Through several readings and discussion, the cohort will create a rubric for future resource evaluation and then pilot its use with one new learning resource they hope to integrate into their online instruction.

This course presents foundational information about blended learning, including definitions, strategies, examples, and reflective activities presented in multimedia format. The goal of the course is for participants to have a basic understanding of the different forms of blended learning and how they might integrate them into coursework.

Introduction to Blended Learning is part of the IDEAL Consortium Special Topics Series. IDEAL Special Topics courses are self-paced, multimedia introductory courses that take approximately three hours to complete.

This course may be taken for free by educators in IDEAL Basic-level member states, including AZ, CA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MN, NH, PA, and TX. If you are in one of these states, contact literacy@worlded.org to find out how to participate.

Participants in this course learn about integrating mobile devices into their classroom, distance, or blended instruction. It includes definitions, suggested strategies, examples, and reflective activities. The goal of the course is for teachers to have an understanding of the different ways adult learners and their teachers can use flip-phones, smartphones and tablets for learning both in and out of the classroom.

Introduction to Mobile Learning is part of the IDEAL Consortium Special Topics Series. IDEAL Special Topics courses are self-paced, multimedia introductory courses that take approximately three hours to complete.

This course may be taken for free by educators in IDEAL Basic-level member states, including AZ, CA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MN, NH, PA, and TX. If you are in one of these states, contact literacy@worlded.org to find out how to participate.

This course introduces participants to essential information about Open Educational Resources (OER), including key definitions, examples, and reflective activities presented in multimedia format. The goal of the course is for teachers to understand the benefits of using OER, know where to find them, and how to evaluate them.

Introduction to Open Educational Resources is part of the IDEAL Consortium Special Topics Series. IDEAL Special Topics courses are self-paced, multimedia introductory courses that take approximately three hours to complete.

This course may be taken for free by educators in IDEAL Basic-level member states, including AZ, CA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MN, NH, PA, and TX. If you are in one of these states, contact literacy@worlded.org to find out how to participate.